The Scold's Bridle Read Online Free PDF Page B

shocked when I saw her that I didn't think about it." She raised her hands in a gesture of helplessness. "And the pathologist and the policeman latched on to what I said she always called the geraniums inside the beastly thing. Her coronet weeds. It comes from the speech about Ophelia's death and, what with the bath and the nettles, I thought they were probably right. But now I'm not so sure." Her voice tailed off and she sat staring at her desk.
    Robin watched her for several seconds. "Supposing she
was
trying to say that her tongue was curbed forever. You realize it has a double meaning?"
    "Yes," said Sarah unhappily, "that someone else curbed it. But that doesn't make sense. I mean, if Mathilda knew she was going to be murdered she wouldn't have wasted time donning the scold's bridle in the hall when all she had to do was run to the front door and scream her head off. The whole village would have heard her. And the murderer would have taken it off anyway."
    "Perhaps it was the murderer who was saying, 'Her tongue is curbed forever.' "
    "But that doesn't make sense either. Why would a murderer advertise that it's murder when he's gone to so much trouble to make it look like suicide?" She rubbed her tired eyes. "Without the scold's bridle, it would have looked straightforward. With it, it looks anything
but
. And why the flowers, for God's sake? What were they supposed to tell us?"
    "You'll have to talk to the police," said Robin with sudden decision, reaching for the telephone. "Dammit, Sarah, who else knew she called you her scold's bridle? Surely it's occurred to you that the message is directed at you."
    "What message?"
    "I don't know. A threat, perhaps. You next, Dr. Blakeney."
    She gave a hollow laugh. "I see it more in terms of a signature." She traced a line on the desk with her fingertip. "Like the mark of Zorro on his victims."
    "Oh, Jesus!" said Robin, putting the receiver back. "Maybe it's wiser not to say anything. Look, it was obviously suicide-you said yourself she was unhealthily obsessed with the damn thing."
    "But I was fond of her."
    "You're fond of everyone, Sarah. It's nothing to be proud of."
    "You sound like Jack." She retrieved the telephone, dialled Learmouth Police Station and asked for Detective Sergeant Cooper.
    Robin watched with gloomy resignation-she had no idea how the tongues would wag if they ever got wind of Mathilda's nickname for her-and wondered disloyally why she had chosen to tell him before anyone else. He had the strangest impression that she had been using him. As a yardstick by which to measure other people's reactions? As a confessor?
    DS Cooper had already left for home and the bored voice at the other end of the wire merely agreed to pass on Sarah's request to speak to him when he arrived the next morning. There was no urgency, after all. The case was closed.
     
     

     
    How I detest my arthritis and the cruel inactivity it imposes. I saw a ghost today but could do nothing about it. I should have struck it down and sent it back to Hell whence it came, instead I could only lash it with my tongue. Has Joanna brought him back to haunt me? It makes sense. She has been plotting something since she found that wretched letter. "Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, more hideous when thou show'st thee in a child than the sea monster."
    But to use James of all people. That I shall never forgive. Or is it he who is using her? Forty years haven't changed him. What loathsome fun he must have had in Hong Kong where I've read the boys dress up as girls and give paederasts the thrill of pretended normality as they parade themselves and their disgusting perversion before a naive public. He looks ill. Well, well, what a charming solution his death would be.
    I made a "most filthy bargain" there. They talk glibly about cycles of abuse these days but, oh, how much more complex those cycles are than the simple brutality visited by parent on child. Everything comes to him who